Moonrise

Director Frank Borzage made some of Hollywood’s most memorable, heart-tugging melodramas in the 1920’s and 30’s, so his name isn’t a natural fit for the film noir style, but his gift for pathos worked beautifully in Moonrise, the story of a man coming to terms with his “bad blood” in the wake of a murder. In perhaps the strongest role of his career, Dane Clark stars as Danny Hawkins, a young man in a small Virginia town who’s haunted by the memory of his father’s execution (for murder), especially after he accidentally kills a local acquaintance named Jerry Sykes (Lloyd Bridges) who had been taunting him since childhood. After burying the body in the woods, he plays dumb about the killing with the folks in town, including his girlfriend Gilly Johnson (Gail Russell), the deaf and dumb “village idiot” Billy Scripture (Harry Morgan), and the blues-singing bloodhound breeder, Mose Jackson (Rex Ingram), who also serves as Danny’s father figure. Once Sheriff Clem Otis (Allyn Joslyn) discovers the body, however, Danny’s fear and guilt come to a head and force a confrontation. Visually, the film is sublime. Borzage uses a wide variety of unusual angles, special effects, filters, moving close-ups, and ironic cut-aways. Lionel Banks’ production design adds  intensity through dramatic set pieces like the dance floor where the camera slowly creeps up to introduce Gilly, the decrepit mansion where the lovers meet to avoid gossip, the moonlit woods in which the initial crime is committed, and the Ferris wheel on which Danny has one of his meltdowns.